Premium Price Differences Tied to Location

August 1, 2006

There's this family of nonsmokers: a man, 37; woman, 35; boy, 11; and girl, 9. This could be the beginning of a script for a politically correct movie. What it is, actually, is the assumption made by a study by a research company, Ehealthinsurance, that suggests that someone living in Spokane, Wash., might want to consider moving to Grand Rapids, Mich. if premium levels are important to him.

An Ehealthinsurance survey of American cities says that heath insurance for that fictional family costs the most in Spokane ($962 a month), the least in Grand Rapids ($159.06 a month).

The five worst bargains for health insurance leading up to Spokane are: Newark tied with Jersey City, N.J. ($744.02), Augusta-Richmond, Ga. ($758.57), Wichita, Kan. ($773.06), Boston ($865.18), and New York in a tie with adjacent Yonkers, N.Y. (916.79).

To collect the data, Ehealthinsurance in March examined 5,000 health insurance plans in 100 of the most populous U.S. cities.